Chapter 3. The Ecumenical Council of Nicęa
in the Reign of Constantine

Section 1. History of the Nicene Council

{236} THE authentic account of the
proceedings of the Nicene Council is not extant [Note
1]. It has in consequence been judged expedient to put together in
the foregoing Chapter whatever was necessary for the explanation of
the Catholic and Arian creeds, and the controversy concerning them,
rather than to reserve any portion of the doctrinal discussion for the
present, though in some respects the more appropriate place for its
introduction. Here then the transactions at Nicęa shall be reviewed
in their political or ecclesiastical aspect. {237}

1.

Arius first published his heresy about the year 319. With his
turbulent conduct in 306 and a few years later we are not here
concerned. After this date, in 313, he is said, on the death of
Achillas, to have aspired to the primacy of the Egyptian Church; and,
according to Philostorgius [Note 2],
the historian of his party, a writer of little credit, to have
generously resigned his claims in favour of Alexander, who was
elected. His ambitious character renders it not improbable that he was
a candidate for the vacant dignity; but, if so, the difference of age
between himself and Alexander, which must have been considerable,
would at once account for the elevation of the latter, and be an
evidence of the indecency of Arius in becoming a competitor at all.
His first attack on the Catholic doctrine was conducted with an
openness which, considering the general duplicity of his party, is the
most honourable trait in his character. In a public meeting of the
clergy of Alexandria, he accused his diocesan of Sabellianism; an
insult which Alexander, from deference to the talents and learning of
the objector, sustained with somewhat too little of the dignity
befitting "the ruler of the people." The mischief which
ensued from his misplaced meekness was considerable. Arius was one of
the public preachers of Alexandria; and, as some suppose, Master of
the Catechetical School. Others of the city Presbyters were stimulated
by his example to similar irregularities. Colluthus, Carponas, and
Sarmatas began to form each his own party in a Church which Meletius
{238} had already troubled; and Colluthus went so far as to promulgate
an heretical doctrine, and to found a sect. Still hoping to settle
these disorders without the exercise of his episcopal power, Alexander
summoned a meeting of his clergy, in which Arius was allowed to state
his doctrines freely, and to argue in their defence; and, whether from
a desire not to overbear the discussion, or from distrust in his own
power of accurately expressing the truth, and anxiety about the charge
of heresy brought against himself, the Primate, though in no wise a
man of feeble mind, is said to have refrained from committing himself
on the controverted subject, "applauding," as Sozomen tells
us, "sometimes the one party, sometimes the other." [Note
3] At length the error of Arius appeared to be of so serious and
confirmed a nature, that countenance of it would have been sinful. It
began to spread beyond the Alexandrian Church; the indecision of
Alexander excited the murmurs of the Catholics; till, called
unwillingly to the discharge of a severe duty, he gave public evidence
of his real indignation against the blasphemies which he had so long
endured, by excommunicating Arius with his followers.

This proceeding, obligatory as it was on a Christian Bishop, and
ratified by the concurrence of a provincial Council, and expedient
even for the immediate interests of Christianity, had other Churches
been equally honest in their allegiance to the true faith, had the
effect of increasing the influence of Arius, by throwing him upon his
fellow-Lucianists of the rival dioceses of the East, and giving
notoriety to his name and tenets. In Egypt, indeed, he had already
been supported {239} by the Meletian faction; which, in spite of its
profession of orthodoxy, continued in alliance with him, through
jealousy of the Church, even after he had fallen into heresy. But the
countenance of these schismatics was of small consideration, compared
with the powerful aid frankly tendered him, on his excommunication, by
the leading men in the great Catholic communities of Asia Minor and
the East. Cęsarea was the first place to afford him a retreat from
Alexandrian orthodoxy, where he received a cordial reception from the
learned Eusebius, Metropolitan of Palestine; while Athanasius, Bishop
of Anazarbus in Cilicia, and others, did not hesitate, by letters on
his behalf, to declare their concurrence with him in the full extent
of his heresy. Eusebius even declared that Christ was not very or true
God; and his associate Athanasius asserted, that He was in the number
of the hundred sheep of the parable, that is, one of the creatures of
God.

Yet, in spite of the countenance of these and other eminent men,
Arius found it difficult to maintain his ground against the general
indignation which his heresy excited. He was resolutely opposed by
Philogonius, Patriarch of Antioch, and Macarius of Jerusalem; who
promptly answered the call made upon them by Alexander, in his
circulars addressed to the Syrian Churches. In the meanwhile Eusebius
of Nicomedia, the early friend of Arius, and the ecclesiastical
adviser of Constantia, the Emperor's sister, declared in his favour;
and offered him a refuge, which he readily accepted, from the growing
unpopularity which attended him in Palestine. Supported by the
patronage of so powerful a prelate, Arius was {240} now scarcely to be
considered in the position of a schismatic or an outcast. He assumed
in consequence a more calm and respectful demeanour towards Alexander;
imitated the courteous language of his friend; and in his Epistle,
which was introduced into the foregoing Chapter, addresses his
diocesan with studious humility, and defers or appeals to previous
statements made by Alexander himself on the doctrine in dispute [Note
4]. At this time also he seems to have corrected and completed his
system. George, afterwards Bishop of Laodicea, taught him an evasion
for the orthodox test "of God," by a reference to 1
Cor. xi. 12. Asterius, a sophist of Cappadocia, advocated the
secondary sense of the word Logos as applied to Christ, with a
reference to such passages as Joel ii. 25; and, in order to explain
away the force of the word "Only-begotten," ([monogenes],)
maintained, that to Christ alone out of all creatures it had been
given, to be fashioned under the immediate presence and perilous
weight of the Divine Hand. Now too, as it appears, the title of
"True God" was ascribed to Him by the heretical party; the
"of an alterable nature" was withdrawn; and an
admission of His actual indefectibility substituted for it. The heresy
being thus placed on a less exceptionable basis, the influence of
Eusebius was exerted in Councils both in Bithynia and Palestine; in
which Arius was acknowledged, and more urgent solicitations addressed
to Alexander, with the view of effecting his re-admission into the
Church. {241}

This was the history of the controversy for the first four or five
years of its existence; that is, till the era of the battle of
Hadrianople (A.D. 323), by the issue of which
Constantine, becoming master of the Roman world, was at liberty to
turn his thoughts to the state of Christianity in the Eastern
Provinces of the Empire. From this date it is connected with civil
history; a result natural, and indeed necessary under the existing
circumstances, though it was the occasion of subjecting Christianity
to fresh persecutions, in place of those which its nominal triumph had
terminated. When a heresy, condemned and excommunicated by one Church,
was taken up by another, and independent Christian bodies thus stood
in open opposition, nothing was left to those who desired peace, to
say nothing of orthodoxy, but to bring the question under the notice
of a General Council. But as a previous step, the leave of the civil
power was plainly necessary for so public a display of that
wide-spreading Association, of which the faith of the Gospel was the
uniting and animating principle. Thus the Church could not meet
together in one, without entering into a sort of negotiation with the
powers that be; whose jealousy it is the duty of Christians, both as
individuals and as a body, if possible, to dispel. On the other hand,
the Roman Emperor, as a professed disciple of the truth, was of course
bound to protect its interests, and to afford every facility for its
establishment in purity and efficacy. It was under these circumstances
that the Nicene Council was convoked.

2.

Now we must direct our view for a while to the {242} character and
history of Constantine. It is an ungrateful task to discuss the
private opinions and motives of an Emperor who was the first to
profess himself the Protector of the Church, and to relieve it from
the abject and suffering condition in which it had lain for three
centuries. Constantine is our benefactor; inasmuch as we, who now
live, may be considered to have received the gift of Christianity by
means of the increased influence which he gave to the Church. And,
were it not that in conferring his benefaction he burdened it with the
bequest of an heresy, which outlived his age by many centuries, and
still exists in its effects in the divisions of the East, nothing
would here be said, from mere grateful recollection of him, by way of
analyzing the state of mind in which he viewed the benefit which he
has conveyed to us. But his conduct, as it discovers itself in the
subsequent history, natural as it was in his case, still has somewhat
of a warning in it, which must not be neglected in after times.

It is of course impossible accurately to describe the various
feelings with which one in Constantine's peculiar situation was likely
to regard Christianity; yet the joint effect of them all may be
gathered from his actual conduct, and the state of the civilized world
at the time. He found his empire distracted with civil and religious
dissensions, which tended to the dissolution of society; at a time
too, when the barbarians without were pressing upon it with a vigour,
formidable in itself, but far more menacing in consequence of the
decay of the ancient spirit of Rome. He perceived the powers of its
old polytheism, from whatever cause, exhausted; and a newly-risen
philosophy {243} vainly endeavouring to resuscitate a mythology which
had done its work, and now, like all things of earth, was fast
returning to the dust from which it was taken. He heard the same
philosophy inculcating the principles of that more exalted and refined
religion, which a civilized age will always require; and he witnessed
the same substantial teaching, as he would consider it, embodied in
the precepts, and enforced by the energetic discipline, the union, and
the example of the Christian Church. Here his thoughts would rest, as
in a natural solution of the investigation to which the state of his
empire gave rise; and, without knowing enough of the internal
characters of Christianity to care to instruct himself in them, he
would discern, on the face of it, a doctrine more real than that of
philosophy, and a rule of life more severe and energetic even than
that of the old Republic. The Gospel seemed to be the fit instrument
of a civil reformation [Note 5],
being but a new form of the old wisdom, which had existed in the world
at large from the beginning. Revering, nay, in one sense, honestly
submitting to its faith, still he acknowledged it rather as a school
than joined it as a polity; and by refraining from the sacrament of
baptism till his last illness, he acted in the spirit of men of the
world in every age, who dislike to pledge themselves to engagements
which they still intend to fulfil, and to descend from the position of
judges to that of disciples of the truth [Note
6].

Concord is so eminently the perfection of the Christian temper,
conduct, and discipline, and it had been so wonderfully exemplified in
the previous history of {244} the Church, that it was almost
unavoidable in a heathen soldier and statesman to regard it as the
sole precept of the Gospel. It required a far more refined moral
perception, to detect and to approve the principle on which this
internal peace is grounded in Scripture; to submit to the dictation of
truth, as such, as a primary authority in matters of political and
private conduct; to understand how belief in a certain creed was a
condition of Divine favour, how the social union was intended to
result from an unity of opinions, the love of man to spring from the
love of God, and zeal to be prior in the succession of Christian
graces to benevolence. It had been predicted by Him, who came to offer
peace to the world, that, in matter of fact, that gift would be
changed into the sword of discord; mankind being offended by the
doctrine, more than they were won over by the amiableness of
Christianity. But He alone was able thus to discern through what a
succession of difficulties Divine truth advances to its final victory;
shallow minds anticipate the end apart from the course which leads to
it. Especially they who receive scarcely more of His teaching than the
instinct of civilization recognizes (and Constantine must, on the
whole, be classed among such), view the religious dissensions of the
Church as simply evil, and (as they would fain prove) contrary to His
own precepts; whereas in fact they are but the history of truth in its
first stage of trial, when it aims at being "pure," before
it is "peaceable;" and are reprehensible only so far as
baser passions mix themselves with that true loyalty towards God,
which desires His glory in the first place, and only in the second
place, the tranquillity and good order of society. {245}

The Edict of Milan (A.D. 313) was among the
first effects of Constantine's anxiety to restore fellowship of
feeling to the members of his distracted empire. In it an absolute
toleration was given by him and his colleague Licinius, to the
Christians and all other persuasions, to follow the form of worship
which each had adopted for himself; and it was granted with the
professed view of consulting for the peace of their people.

A year did not elapse from the date of this Edict, when Constantine
found it necessary to support it by severe repressive measures against
the Donatists of Africa, though their offences were scarcely of a
civil nature. Their schism had originated in the disappointed ambition
of two presbyters; who fomented an opposition to Cęcilian, illegally
elevated, as they pretended, to the episcopate of Carthage. Growing
into a sect, they appealed to Constantine, who referred their cause to
the arbitration of successive Councils. These pronounced in favour of
Cęcilian; and, on Constantine's reviewing and confirming their
sentence, the defeated party assailed him with intemperate complaints,
accused Hosius, his adviser, of partiality in the decision, stirred up
the magistrates against the Catholic Church, and endeavoured to
deprive it of its places of worship. Constantine in consequence took
possession of their churches, banished their seditious bishops, and
put some of them to death. A love of truth is not irreconcilable
either with an unlimited toleration, or an exclusive patronage of a
selected religion; but to endure or discountenance error, according as
it is, or is not, represented in an independent system and existing
authority, to spare {246} the pagans and to tyrannize over the
schismatics, is the conduct of one who subjected religious principle
to expediency, and aimed at peace, as a supreme good, by forcible
measures where it was possible, otherwise by conciliation.

It must be observed, moreover, that subsequently to the celebrated
vision of the Labarum (A.D. 312), he publicly
invoked the Deity as one and the same in all forms of worship; and at
a later period (A.D. 321), he promulgated
simultaneous edicts for the observance of Sunday, and the due
consultation of the aruspices [Note 7].
On the other hand, as in the Edict of Milan, so in his Letters and
Edicts connected with the Arian controversy, the same reference is
made to external peace and good order, as the chief object towards
which his thoughts were directed. The same desire of tranquillity led
him to summon to the Nicene Council the Novatian Bishop Acesius, as
well as the orthodox prelates. At a later period still when he
extended a more open countenance to the Church as an institution, the
same principle discovers itself in his conduct as actuated him in his
measures against the Donatists. In proportion as he recognizes the
Catholic body, he drops his toleration of the sectaries. He prohibited
the conventicles of the Valentinians, Montanists, and other heretics;
who, at his bidding, joined the Church in such numbers (many of them,
says Eusebius, "through fear of the Imperial threat, with
hypocritical minds" [Note 8]),
that at length both heresy and schism might be said to disappear from
the face of society. {247} Now let us observe his conduct in the Arian
controversy.

Doubtless it was a grievous disappointment to a generous and
large-minded prince, to discover that the Church itself, from which he
had looked for the consolidation of his empire, was convulsed by
dissensions such as were unknown amid the heartless wranglings of
Pagan philosophy. The disturbances caused by the Donatists, which his
acquisition of Italy (A.D. 312) had opened upon
his view, extended from the borders of the Alexandrian patriarchate to
the ocean. The conquest of the East (A.D. 323)
did but enlarge his prospect of the distractions of Christendom. The
patriarchate just mentioned had lately been visited by a deplorable
heresy, which having run its course through the chief parts of Egypt,
Lybia, and Cyrenaica, had attacked Palestine and Syria, and spread
thence into the dioceses of Asia Minor and the Lydian Proconsulate.

Constantine was informed of the growing schism at Nicomedia, and at
once addressed a letter to Alexander and Arius jointly [Note
9]; a reference to which will enable the reader to verify for
himself the account above given of the nature of the Emperor's
Christianity. He professes therein two motives as impelling him in his
public conduct; first, the desire of effecting the reception,
throughout his dominions, of some one definite and complete form of
religious worship; next, that of settling and invigorating the civil
institutions of the empire. Desirous of securing an unity of sentiment
among all the believers in the Deity, he first directed his attention
to the religious dissensions {248} of Africa, which he had hoped, with
the aid of the Oriental Christians, to terminate. "But," he
continues, "glorious and Divine Providence! how fatally were my
ears, or rather my heart, wounded, by the report of a rising schism
among you, far more acrimonious than the African dissensions ... On
investigation, I find that the reason for this quarrel is
insignificant and worthless ... As I understand it, you, Alexander,
were asking the separate opinions of your clergy on some passage of
your law, or rather were inquiring about some idle question, when you,
Arius, inconsiderately committed yourself to statements which should
either never have come into your mind, or have been at once repressed.
On this a difference ensued, Christian intercourse was suspended, the
sacred flock was divided into two, breaking the harmonious unity of
the common body ... Listen to the advice of me, your fellow-servant:—neither
ask nor answer questions which are not upon any injunction of your
law, but from the altercation of barren leisure; at best keep them to
yourselves, and do not publish them ... Your contention is not about
any capital commandment of your law; neither of you is introducing any
novel scheme of divine worship; you are of one and the same way of
thinking, so that it is in your power to unite in one communion. Even
the philosophers can agree together, one and all, in one dogma, though
differing in particulars ... Is it right for brothers to oppose
brothers, for the sake of trifles? ... Such conduct might be expected
from the multitude, or from the recklessness of boyhood; but is little
in keeping with your sacred profession, and with your {249} personal
wisdom." Such is the substance of his letter, which, written on
an imperfect knowledge of the facts of the case, and with somewhat of
the prejudices of Eclectic liberalism, was inapplicable, even where
abstractedly true; his fault lying in his supposing, that an
individual like himself, who had not even received the grace of
baptism, could discriminate between great and little questions in
theology. He concludes with the following words, which show the
amiableness and sincerity of a mind in a measure awakened from the
darkness of heathenism, though they betray the affectation of the
rhetorician. "Give me back my days of calm, my nights of
security; that I may experience henceforth the comfort of the clear
light, and the cheerfulness of tranquillity. Otherwise, I shall sigh
and be dissolved in tears ... So great is my grief, that I put off my
journey to the East on the news of your dissension ... Open for me
that path towards you, which your contentions have closed up. Let me
see you and all other cities in happiness; that I may offer due
thanksgivings to God above, for the unanimity and free intercourse
which is seen among you."

This letter was conveyed to the Alexandrian Church by Hosius, who
was appointed by the Emperor to mediate between the contending
parties. A Council was called, in which some minor irregularities were
arranged, but nothing settled on the main question in dispute. Hosius
returned to his master to report an unsuccessful mission, and to
advise, as the sole measure which remained to be adopted, the calling
of a General Council, in which the Catholic doctrine might be formally
declared, {250} and a judgment promulgated as to the basis upon which
communion with the Church was henceforth to be determined. Constantine
assented; and, discovering that the ecclesiastical authorities were
earnest in condemning the tenets of Arius, as being an audacious
innovation on the received creed, he suddenly adopted a new line of
conduct towards the heresy; and in a Letter which he addressed to
Arius, professes himself a zealous advocate of Christian truth,
ventures to expound it, and attacks Arius with a vehemence which can
only be imputed to his impatience in finding that any individual had
presumed to disturb the peace of the community. It is remarkable, as
showing his utter ignorance of doctrines, which were never intended
for discussion among the unbaptized heathen, or the secularized
Christian, that, in spite of this bold avowal of the orthodox faith in
detail, yet shortly after he explained to Eusebius one of the Nicene
declarations in a sense which even Arius would scarcely have allowed,
expressed as it is almost after the manner of Paulus [Note
10].

3.

The first Ecumenical Council met at Nicęa in Bithynia, in the
summer of A.D. 325. It was attended by about 300
Bishops, chiefly from the eastern provinces of the empire, besides a
multitude of priests, deacons, and other functionaries of the Church.
Hosius, one of the most eminent men of an age of saints, was
president. The Fathers who took the principal share in its proceedings
were Alexander of Alexandria, attended by his deacon Athanasius, then
{251} about 27 years of age, and soon afterwards his successor in the
see; Eustathius, patriarch of Antioch, Macarius of Jerusalem,
Cęcilian of Carthage, the object of the hostility of the Donatists,
Leontius of Cęsarea in Cappadocia, and Marcellus of Ancyra, whose
name was afterwards unhappily notorious in the Church. The number of
Arian Bishops is variously stated at 13, 17, or 22; the most
conspicuous of these being the well-known prelates of Nicomedia and
Cęsarea, both of whom bore the name of Eusebius.

The discussions of the Council commenced in the middle of June, and
were at first private. Arius was introduced and examined; and
confessed his impieties with a plainness and vehemence far more
respectable than the hypocrisy which was the characteristic of his
party, and ultimately was adopted by himself. Then followed his
disputation with Athanasius [Note 11],
who afterwards engaged the Arian {252} Eusebius of Nicomedia, Maris,
and Theognis. The unfortunate Marcellus also distinguished himself in
the defence of the Catholic doctrine.

Reference has been already made to Gibbon's representation [Note
12], that the Fathers of the Council were in doubt for a time, how
to discriminate between their own doctrine and the heresy; but the
discussions of the foregoing Chapter contain sufficient evidence, that
they had rather to reconcile themselves to the adoption of a formula
which expedience suggested, and to the use of it as a test, than to
discover a means of ejecting or subduing their opponents. In the very
beginning of the controversy, Eusebius of Nicomedia had declared, that
he would not admit the "from the substance" as an
attribute of our Lord [Note 13].
A letter containing a similar avowal was read in the Council, and made
clear to its members the objects for which they had met; viz. to
ascertain the character and tendency of the heresy; to raise a protest
and defence against it; lastly, for that purpose, to {253} overcome
their own reluctance to the formal and unauthoritative adoption of a
word, in explanation of the true doctrine, which was not found in
Scripture, had actually been perverted in the previous century to an
heretical meaning, and was in consequence forbidden by the Antiochene
Council which condemned Paulus.

The Arian party, on the other hand, anxious to avoid a test, which
they themselves had suggested, presented a Creed of their own, drawn
up by Eusebius of Cęsarea. In it, though the expression "of
the substance" or "consubstantial" was
omitted, every term of honour and dignity, short of this, was bestowed
therein upon the Son of God; who was designated as the Logos of God,
God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the Only-begotten Son, the
First-born of the whole creation, of the Father before all worlds, and
the Instrument of creating them. The Three Persons were confessed to
be in real hypostasis or subsistence (in opposition to
Sabellianism), and to be truly Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The
Catholics saw very clearly, that concessions of this kind on the part
of the Arians did not conceal the real question in dispute. Orthodox
as were the terms employed by them, naturally and satisfactorily as
they would have answered the purposes of a test, had the existing
questions never been agitated, and consistent as they were with
certain producible statements of the Ante-Nicene writers, they were
irrelevant at a time when evasions had been found for them all, and
triumphantly proclaimed. The plain question was, whether our Lord was
God in as full a sense as the Father, though not to be viewed as
separable from Him; or {254} whether, as the sole alternative, He was
a creature; that is, whether He was literally of, and in, the one
Indivisible Essence which we adore as God, "consubstantial with
God," or of a substance which had a beginning. The Arians said
that He was a creature, the Catholics that He was very God; and all
the subtleties of the most fertile ingenuity could not alter, and
could but hide, this fundamental difference. A specimen of the Arian
argumentation at the Council has already been given on the testimony
of Athanasius; happily it was not successful. A form of creed was
drawn up by Hosius, containing the discriminating terms of orthodoxy [Note
14]; and anathemas were added against all who maintained the
heretical formulę, Arius and his immediate followers being mentioned
by name. In order to prevent misapprehension of the sense in which the
test was used, explanations accompanied it. Thus carefully defined, it
was offered for subscription to the members of the Council; who in
consequence bound themselves to excommunicate from their respective
bodies all who actually obtruded upon the Church the unscriptural and
novel positions of Arius. As to the laity, they were not required to
subscribe any test as the condition of communion; though they were of
course exposed to the operation of the anathema, in case they ventured
on positive innovations on the rule of faith.

While the Council took this clear and temperate {255} view of its
duties, Constantine acted a part altogether consistent with his own
previous sentiments, and praiseworthy under the circumstances of his
defective knowledge. He had followed the proceedings of the assembled
prelates with interest, and had neglected no opportunity of impressing
upon them the supreme importance of securing the peace of the Church.
On the opening of the Council, he had set the example of conciliation,
by burning publicly, without reading, certain charges which had been
presented to him against some of its members; a noble act, as
conveying a lesson to all present to repress every private feeling,
and to deliberate for the well-being of the Church Catholic to the end
of time. Such was his behaviour, while the question in controversy was
still pending; but when the decision was once announced, his tone
altered, and what had been a recommendation of caution, at once became
an injunction to conform. Opposition to the sentence of the Church was
considered as disobedience to the civil authority; the prospect of
banishment was proposed as the alternative of subscription; and it was
not long before seven of the thirteen dissentient Bishops submitted to
the pressure of the occasion, and accepted the creed with its
anathemas as articles of peace.

Indeed the position in which Eusebius of Nicomedia had placed their
cause, rendered it difficult for them consistently to refuse
subscription. The violence, with which Arius originally assailed the
Catholics, had been succeeded by an affected earnestness for unity and
concord, so soon as his favour at Court allowed him to dispense with
the low popularity by which he first rose into notice. The
insignificancy of {256} the points in dispute which had lately been
the very ground of complaint with him and his party against the
particular Church which condemned him, became an argument for their
yielding, when the other Churches of Christendom confirmed the
sentence of the Alexandrian. It is said, that some of them substituted
the "homœusion" ("like in substance"),
for the "homoüsion" ("one in substance")
in the confessions which they presented to the Council; but it is
unsafe to trust the Anomœan Philostorgius, on whose authority the
report rests [Note 15], in a
charge against the Eusebian party, and perhaps after all he merely
means, that they explained the latter by the former as an excuse for
their own recantation. The six, who remained unpersuaded, had founded
an objection, which the explanations set forth by the Council had gone
to obviate, on the alleged materialism of the word which had been
selected as the test. At length four of them gave way; and the other
two, Eusebius of Nicomedia and another, withdrawing their opposition
to the "homoüsion," only refused to sign the
condemnation of Arius. These, however, were at length released from
their difficulty, by the submission of the heresiarch himself; who was
pardoned on the understanding, that he never returned to the Church,
which had suffered so much from his intrigues. There is, however, some
difficulty in this part of the history. Eusebius shortly afterwards
suffered a temporary exile, on a detection of his former practices
with Licinius to the injury of Constantine; and Arius, apparently
involved in his ruin, was banished with his followers into Illyria.

Notes

1. Vide Ittigius, Hist. Conc. Nic. § 1. The rest of this volume is
drawn up from the following authorities: Eusebius, Vit. Const.
Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, Hist. Eccles., the various
historical tracts of Athanasius, Epiphanius Hęr. lxix. lxxiii., and
the Acta Conciliorum. Of moderns, especially Tillemont and Petavius;
then, Maimbourg's History of Arianism, the Benedictine Life of
Athanasius, Cave's Life of Athanasius and Literary History, Gibbon's
Roman History and Mr. Bridges' Reign of Constantine.Return to text

4. [Alexander's siding with Arius, was nothing
more than his disclaiming the views of the Five Fathers, vide supr.
pp. 202, 220; also Appendix, No. 2, [gennesis]. As to
the Arian evasions which follow, vide supr. pp. 193, 216, 223, 238,
&c.]Return to text

11. ["It is difficult," say the
Notes, Ath. Tr. vol. ii. p. 17, "to gain a clear idea of the
character of Arius. Athanasius speaks as if his Thalia was but in
keeping with his life, calling him the 'Sotadean Arius,' while
Constantine, Alexander, and Epiphanius give us a contrary view of him,
still differing one from the other. Constantine, indeed, is not
consistent with himself; first he cries out to him (as if with
Athanasius), 'Arius, Arius, at least let the society of Venus keep you
back,' then 'Look, look all men ... how his veins and flesh are
possessed with poison, and are in a ferment of severe pain; how his
whole body is wasted, and is all withered and sad and pale and
shaking, and all that is miserable and fearfully emaciated. How
hateful to see, and how filthy is his mass of hair, how he is half
dead all over, with failing eyes and bloodless countenance, and woe-begone;
so that, all these things combining in him at once, frenzy, madness,
and folly, from the continuance of the complaint, have made thee wild
and savage. But, not having any sense of the bad plight he is in, he
cries out, "I am transported with delight, and I leap and skip
for joy, and I fly;" and again, with boyish impetuosity, "Be
it so," he says, "we are lost."'" Harduin. Conc.
t. i. p. 457. St. Alexander speaks of Arius's melancholy temperament.
Epiphanius's account of him is as follows: "From elation of mind
this old man swerved from the truth. He was in stature very tall,
downcast in visage, with manners like a wily serpent, captivating to
every guileless heart by that same crafty bearing. For, ever habited
in cloke and vest, he was pleasant of address, ever persuading souls
and flattering," &c. Hęr. 69, 3. Arius is here said to be
tall; Athanasius, unless Julian's description of him is but
declamation, was short, [mede aner, all' anthropiskos
enteles] ("not even a man, but a common little
fellow"). Ep. 51. However, Gregory Nazianzen, who had never seen
him, speaks of him, as "high in prowess, and humble in spirit,
mild, meek, full of sympathy, pleasant in speech, more pleasant in
manners, angelical in person, more angelical in mind,
serene in his rebukes, instructive in his praises," &c. Orat,
21. 8.]Return to text

14. [Justice has not been done here to the
ground of tradition, on which the Fathers specially took their stand.
For example, "Whoever heard such doctrine?" says Athanasius;
"whence, from whom did they gain it? Who thus expounded to them
when they were at school?" Orat. i. § 8. "Is it not enough
to distract a man, and to make him stop his ears?" § 35. Vide
Ath. Tr. vol. ii. pp. 247-253, 311.]Return to text